


Missives from 1974

by arboretum



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arboretum/pseuds/arboretum
Summary: Six unrelated Peacewalker-era ficlets; I replayed the game after MGSV in desperate search of some lightness.1.the logistics guy— “Boss, as always, just leave the logistics to me.”2.easy money— “I'll bet you a hundred each. No, athousand.”3.just you— “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”4.cryptid— “Where the hell are we? Why didn’t we just take the road?”5.to have to hold— You were a mistake in the first place.6.1975— “You can’t blame a wolf for not coming home to you, can you?”





	1. the logistics guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Boss, as always, just leave the logistics to me.”

The first time they did it, they were holed up in Kaz’s office up high in the command platform.  It was a hot day, and they kept the door propped open with a cardboard box for the sea breeze.  Inside, Kaz had various paperweights — rocks, a crusty mug, an empty clip — holding his paperwork down, and they had been arguing over the food.

Snake’s position was that they had the manpower to develop some higher-level gear if they’d stop diverting so much of their staff to the kitchen.  Kaz’s position was that fish needed to be deboned before consumption.

Snake appeared to consider the proposal, then countered, “Well, how else are the men supposed to get their calcium?”

“Not from  _bones_ ,” Kaz said, and then lay back dramatically in his chair. “Forget it, Snake, you’re not changing my mind.”

Snake harrumphed and sat down heavily on the floor between a short tower of paperwork and a couple of ammo cans.  “I don’t change your mind about much, do I, Kaz?”

“Hey, if you come to me with a reasonable proposal, you’ll find I’m a reasonable man.”

“Right,” said Snake.  “Reasonable.”

Kaz threw a wad of paper at him.  “Don’t forget who’s balancing the books here and keeping us out of the red.  Can’t take my eye off you for a minute.”

“Wish you would,” Snake grumbled.

Kaz cracked an eye open and let it rest appreciatively on Snake’s — as usual, whenever he could get away with it — bare chest.  “Do you?”

Innuendo seemed to go right over Snake’s head a hundred percent of the time, but it didn’t stop Kaz from trying.

The truth was, he was never entirely sure what did and didn’t land with Snake — he had a sense, after two years at the man’s side, sure, but Snake always found a way to surprise, one minute quoting Mishima and the next insisting on the reality of Santa Claus.  Countless times Kaz found himself pulled up short, stuttering, “You’re  _kidding_ , right?”

But the weird thing was, he was pretty sure Snake was never kidding.  Pretty sure.

It was part of the man’s strange charm; that, at least, Kaz could say for sure.

Speaking of which —

“Yeah,” Snake said, in a tone which said quite clearly that he found Kaz slow for needing a recap. “We’d have better guns if you’d loosen up a little.”

“We’d also be  _broke_ ,” Kaz said.  “And not even love of the legendary Big Boss would keep guys around forever starving and unpaid.  Never mind, that’s not what I was getting at.  Hand me that bottle, will you?”

Snake did, though not without a judgmental look at the label.

“Hey, it was cheap,” Kaz said, and popped the cork.  “Drink?”

They found a cleanish looking mug on the bookshelf, and Kaz gracefully took it upon himself to use the dirty one on the desk.  Self-sacrifice.  Very noble.

“Well, Cécile was right.  It is pretty bad,” he allowed, after a few sips.  “Though the coffee stains are probably not helping.”

Snake drank in stoic silence, whether because he liked it or because it was too bad to comment on, Kaz couldn’t tell.

“Look, Boss,” Kaz said, after a while.  “I don’t mean to bring up an uncomfortable subject if that’s what this is, but I’ve been trying to get at it less bluntly for a while now and it’s occurred to me that that’s just never going to work.  So I’m just gonna say it, huh?”

He paused, as much for effect as to find his words.  Snake just watched him expectantly.

“Boss, do you wanna fuck?”

“Uh,” said Snake.

Kaz felt himself going red all over.  Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.

“You?” said Snake.

“Yeah, who else do you see in this room?”

“Ah,” said Snake, appearing to consider this revelation with some seriousness.

“All right, it’s fine,” Kaz said, and waved his mug expansively.  “It’s fine, it was just a thought, it’s no big deal, just say no, and—“

“Ok,” said Snake.

Kaz choked on his own spit.  “Excuse me?”

“Ok,” Snake repeated.  “But I haven’t… uh… I mean, I don’t know…”

Kaz felt himself reddening again for a different reason, and he leaned forward on his desk, hands clasped around his mug like a prayer.  He said, with what felt like slightly deranged laugh, “Boss, as always, just leave the logistics to me.”

They stared at each other in some embarrassment for a moment, and then Kaz said, “Get over here, Snake.”


	2. easy money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I'll bet you a hundred each. No, a _thousand_.”

“But can you hold up a man with a banana?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.  All you have to do to hold someone up is sneak up behind them and surprise them with a gun.  Any gun will do.”

“Yeah, but have you ever done it with a  _banana_?”

Snake got a look of deep consternation across his face and mumbled something under his breath.

As he turned to board the helicopter, he swiped the banana out of Kaz’s hands and stuffed it into his belt.  He got on without looking back at any of them.

Kaz waited until the chopper had risen off the ground fifteen feet before he turned to Cécile and Amanda, who were both having trouble stifling giggles, and held out his open palm.  “A thousand each, ladies, please and thank you.”


	3. just you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You won’t stop calling me Boss, but I think you actually get off on bossing me around.”

November of 1973, and they had just moved into this shack Kaz had found on the Barranquilla coast. It wasn’t much, but it kept them out of the rain. Kaz had the men rolling their cots out on the floor every night, and then rolling them back up every morning and stacking them in the corner before putting the furniture in the room back in place. “Just like we did in Japan,” he said cheerfully, to a round of groans. “Gotta make the most of the space you’ve got.”

“Smart,” had been Snake’s only comment.

It was mid-afternoon now, and Snake had sent the men out for drills on the beach. Kaz had a selection of small jobs that had come in, and they were poring over them at the table. Kaz looked up from the folder he was holding, raised both eyebrows, and said, as suggestively as he could manage, “Get off on?”

“Yeah,” Snake said, firmly, frowning down at the table.

“Do you,” said Kaz, then thought better of it. “Never mind. Yeah, I guess you’re right, I guess I do.”

“See, I knew it!”

“If you want me to stop, just say the word. _Boss_.”

Snake grumbled and shuffled the paperwork a little.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You’re too full of yourself, Kaz,” Snake said, pulling one folder out of the mess. “Let’s do this one.”

“Hey, you like me that way,” Kaz said lightly, and snatched the papers from under Snake’s nose. He noticed Snake didn’t contradict him. “Hmm. In-and-out hostage rescue. You want support on this one?”

“No. Just you on the radio.”


	4. cryptid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where the hell are we? Why didn’t we just take the road?”

“I gotta keep you on a leash or something to keep you from wandering away from me. Have you ever seen those child leashes they’ve got in America? I saw a woman with one once when I was there as a teen, and it was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. They’ve got this harness they put on the kid, not too unlike the one you’re wearing, you know, and they hook a leash onto it so the kid can’t wander off. Pretty ingenious if you think about it. Hey, you listening to me?”

“You’re going to put a leash on me?”

“Sometimes I wish I could. Where the hell are we? Why didn’t we just take the road?”

Kaz knew why they didn’t just take the road. The road would have been a perfectly reasonable option, slightly circuitous but straightforward, and they weren’t on the run or hiding from anyone, and that was what roads were _for_. But Snake had suddenly taken a sharp right a few kilometers into their walk and crashed into the underbrush, and Kaz had had to go chasing after him, and now here they were.

“Thought I saw a—” Snake paused, as if embarrassed.

“A what? You hungry?”

“No, not that. I just. Have you talked to Chico lately?”

“Chico, I — no, I. Snake. You saw a,” Kaz said, and then let the incredulity seep slowly into his voice. “A Bigfoot? Is that what you saw, Snake?”

“Why is it that you don’t call me Boss when you want to make fun of me?”

“It’s more fun, obviously,” Kaz said, hitting him on the back of the head. “Well, where’d the Bigfoot go, then?”

Snake grumbled and rubbed his neck. “It’s gone now. I don’t see it anymore.”

“Yeah? That’s too bad.” Kaz gave the dense foliage in front of them a cursory squint. “In the meantime, though, Boss, you’ve gotten me for one well and truly lost, so if you wanna put that ultimate soldier brain of yours to work and find us the way out of this jungle, that’d be pretty great.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Snake said. “Don’t worry about it.”


	5. to have to hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were a mistake in the first place.

Years and years later, Kaz would spend hours, days, weeks, and months wondering if it had been real. If any of it had been real.

He had worked so hard at the time not to let it be real, which was the irony, he supposed. It was just a fling, he’d told himself, a wild impulse he’d had to see through. He’d get it out of his system, and that would be that. But September bled into October, which settled into November, and it was not over.

Nine years later and it was still not over, and Kaz thought despairingly that perhaps in some way it would never be over.

When did he lose him? Was it in the hospital, when they took him from right under Kaz’s nose? When Snake woke up, and let Ocelot whisper machinations into his ear? Or before? Did Kaz ever have him, really?

 _Should have kept you on a tighter leash_ , he thought ruefully, and in the same moment, also thought, _You were a mistake in the first place_.


	6. 1975

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can’t blame a wolf for not coming home to you, can you?”

In the blink of an eye, it was February of 1975, and Kaz was seeing Big Boss off on the chopper that would take him to Cuba. It was hard to hear over the spin of the rotary blades. The rest of the staff of who’d come out were fifteen feet away, but they might as well have been a mile away, and Morpho was already inside adjusting his headset. Kaz leaned in close and shouted into Snake’s ear, “Come on back to me in one piece, you hear?”

Snake clapped his hand on Kaz’s arm solemnly, and then turned and got into the chopper.

It was this moment, more than any other, that Kaz would replay for himself, over and over and over.

If only he’d done something, or said something. If only he’d just kissed him, or — if he hadn’t been afraid of it, if he’d been clearer, if he’d just known back then what he knew now, if he hadn’t spent so much time running from himself.

He should have figured it out sooner, he should have told him, held his shoulders and said looking into his eyes, “I love you,” so that there weren’t any ifs ands or buts about it, but he didn’t.

He alternated between hating Big Boss and feeling desperately fatalistic about it all.

“You can’t blame a wolf for not coming home to you, can you?” he asked DD one afternoon, while V was away on a mission.

DD put his nose into Kaz’s hand helpfully.

“I should never have let them take him from me. I lost him when they took him away. You can’t take your eyes off that guy, you know? You just can’t trust him for shit.”


End file.
